Tag: Ukraine

A one-week Defence Resource Management Course funded by the Directorate of Military Training and Cooperation (Canada’s Department of National Defence) was developed for the Ukraine National Defence University in Kiev. First taught in February 2015 by an experienced team of senior Canadian military officers, and again in November, the course is organized around four inter-related themes illustrating the integrated and corporate nature of defence management at the strategic level.

The National Defence University of Ukraine (NDU) is contributing to change in defence within Ukraine. One noteworthy initiative is the Building Integrity Training and Education Centre (BITEC) established within the structure of the university in September 2014. BITEC personnel receive training outside Ukraine through Transparency International and in coordination with national Western military organizations, as well as NATO.

Multiple potholes dot Ukraine’s road to a more accountable and liberal political regime: its 12% decline in GDP this year; the military stalemate in the east and the de facto loss of Crimea; and, of course, entrenched political malaise and corruption. It is within this challenging environment that crucial political and security reforms are taking place, which rely to a large degree on internal reformers and external assistance.

Paul Biddle served as a UK secondee to the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Luhansk (Lugansk) field office from April 2014-March 2015. He was over various times security, military and police focal point, operations officer, patrol leader and patrol hub leader. In this blog post, he shares his analysis and experience of the situation in Ukraine.

The Minsk meeting of February 2015 has several important parallels with the Munich encounter of September 1938. In this article, the author highlights three important parallels that are particularly relevant to the security situation in Europe and internationally.

Neville Chamberlain had to deal with a public opinion that was in many quarters vehemently against military engagement of any kind. Obama faces a similar challenge. After two, painful and largely unnecessary wars, American public opinion is weary of foreign adventures. Obama is not Neville Chamberlain. But like Neville Chamberlain, Obama risks now going down in history as an appeaser to an aggressor’s rise.

Since rereading the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit Declaration issued in Cardiff, Wales, David Law aims to put himself in President Putin’s place in order to understand how Putin, directly or through his advisors, would react to the Declaration. This article is an attempt at this exercise.

Since April 2014, Russia had been waging a proxy war in eastern Ukraine. Although no war was officially declared, Russia’s covert and overt support was crucial in financing, equipping, providing personnel, and supplying intelligence to the pro-Russian separatists. Russia’s fateful decision to undertake a direct military incursion into southeastern Ukraine has turned what was previously only a proxy war into something undeniably real.

While no war has officially been declared by Moscow, Russia’s covert and increasingly overt support has been crucial in financing, equipping, providing personnel, and supplying intelligence to the pro-Russian separatists. But it was not until rebels shot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 with a Russian-supplied BUK surface-to-air missile, that many in Western media and policy circles began to acknowledge Moscow’s significant support for the pro-Russian separatists.

Political turmoil in Ukraine is nothing new. One only needs to look at the 2004 Orange Revolution, when citizens mobilized throughout the country to protest the blatant election fraud of the November 2004 presidential elections and the pervasive corruption in their government. Yet Ukraine’s political crisis has intensified during the past year, carrying much broader international implications.

Among the pressing security concerns of the day (Nigeria, Syria, Afghanistan, and the South China Sea stand out most prominently), Ukraine continues to dominate discussions across the North Atlantic. With continuous Russian pressure and Ukraine’s internal problems in its east, what institutional changes might be possible within the Ukrainian government, and within the security apparatus more specifically?